A week of focus could change my world

I was nervous, I was dreading it. I was also very slightly excited. Very very slightly. What if I could actually win this tennis tournament finals match? The slight excitement was a deeply buried emotion. But there was a tiny bubble of excitement fizzing somewhere in my head – and then as soon as I caught a fleeting glimpse of it – it quickly disappeared. Gone. Lost. Back to nerves. Horrible horrible nerves. 

In all honestly I didn’t fancy my chances of winning it but I wanted to steal a few more games this year. I was facing the same person in the finals. The same resolute person. The same ruthless tennis player. The-I-thrive-under-pressure-take-no-prisoners-player!

But, this time I was going to put up a bloody good fight. I was going to be ready. I was going to do my very very best. I was going to focus on this. Because it mattered. Not in the grand scheme of life. Not even in anyone else’s mind. But it mattered to me. 

I read the ‘Inner Game of Tennis’ or most of it. I ate healthily (mostly), I didn’t drink. I did focussed exercise – but not too much. I didn’t do anything extreme. I didn’t take up the offer of going to a new-fangled fitness ‘gladiator camp’. I was focused. Focussed on what I wanted to achieve. Focussed on what I had within my sights. Focussed because this actually meant something to me. I wanted to be the best at this. 

I play tennis most days. If there was a graph for effort and improvement and if the two perfectly correlated then I’d be on an exponential path to improvement and tennis enlightenment. But, alas, it doesn’t work like that. 

But for this week – and maybe a bit longer than that – maybe two weeks. I was 100% focussed on this match. I was googling strategies ‘how to beat a player who’s better than you’. ‘how to beat a player who’s more consistent than you’, ‘how to play your best tennis’. I was watching videos. I was absorbing things. I was zoning in on what I wanted to achieve. I read that I needed to visualise how I wanted the match to go. Until this week, I had barely considered strategy, I had barely worked out which side was her backhand. 

I was talking about it at work, I was talking about it in tennis lessons, I was talking about it to anyone who would listen – supermarket cashiers, garage mechanics – anyone. I was trying to suss out my strengths, my weaknesses (far too many) and likewise what were hers. How was I going to play this game. How was I going to play to win. 

After considerable research, chats and probably boring the hell out of everyone remotely close to me I worked out the following. My key strength in the match would be that I’m a little bit fitter and she would play to my weaknesses – my crazy over enthusiastic, unwieldy shots. So, I was going to try to keep the ball deep, keep it in play, keep her running as much as possible – and only when a really good opportunity presented itself would I go for the winner. I wouldn’t just go for everything. I would wait. I would be patient. I would play the waiting game. I can play all day – she might get more tired than me. That might be my chance. 

Match day. I was up early. I was on it. I was pacing. I was listening to my tunes. I had my bag packed two hours before the game. The dog who normally comes to tennis was not allowed anywhere near the court. Too much of a distraction. 

Several friends had asked me what time I was playing and I feigned that I didn’t really know as the added pressure of people watching sometimes messes me right up. I start going for the big shots – the glory shots! I seem incapable of playing sensibly when anyone watches. 

A considerable number turned up to watch. I clocked them but I refused to let it affect me. Okay I wasn’t going to play any ‘crowd-pleasers’ but surely it would be more pleasing for the under dog to triumph? When I say crowd – it wasn’t a ‘crowd’ but by my village-tennis-standards it was a crowd!

I played how I’d decided I was going to play. What was different between today and how I normally play was 100% focus on the game. In fact it wasn’t even as broad as that. It was 100% focus on the shot in hand – not even on the point. Set point kind of took me by surprise. I was suddenly there. At one set up I felt myself having a sneaky moment of thinking oh my god, this is possibly maybe within my grasp. But I daren’t think like that. So I buried the thought. Regained composure. Regained focus.  

Whatever I was doing was working. I mustn’t change anything. And that included what I was doing when we changed ends. So every end change I had to do the same. One sip of special caffeine isotonic drink. One wipe of my nose. Tissue into bag. Weird – but that’s what I told myself I had to do. Keep it all the same. It’s working. Keep it all the same. 

My strategy was working. Keep it in play, keep it deep and then let’s try a risky drop shot. Boooom. I was taking the points. In fact this tactic was riling the otherwise-unrilable-opponent. One drop shot after another. It was working so I was keeping at them. It got her ruffled. At one point she even said she didn’t want to play if I was going to keep doing that. Result!! It was frustrating her play, her mojo. I was calm. I was unruffalable. What the holy shnizzle was happening? I knew which side I was serving from ( I normally have no idea and no idea what the score is). But I knew what was going on. I was on it. 

Someone else arrived to watch. They like a bit of banter. Normally I do too. They started heckling me about my choice of outfit. I didn’t respond. I probably looked sour-faced, but I didn’t even care. All I cared about was what was in front of me. I didn’t look at my watch. I didn’t look at my heart rate, or the number of steps I’d taken – normally both stats fascinate me while I’m playing. I simply focussed on the shot I was playing. 

I really felt that the ‘crowd’ was with me. And at one point I heard a wise word from them, directed at me. It was simple. Breathe. I did. I won. 

I was over the moon. Seriously stoked. Over-joyed. I ran to the ‘crowd’ and hugged everyone. I felt they’d been willing me through it and I was so so pleased I had delivered. They said they had never seen me focus like I had today and that it was a considerable change in how they’d ever known me behave on court. They said that it looked like I knew what I was there to do and I got on and did it. 

For the last two weeks I have had a purpose. A focus. I have been trying to achieve something. In the grand scheme of life it doesn’t matter. No one else probably even cares. But I cared and so I put everything I had into it. And what’s more it actually worked. Committing to this worked. What was hard I suppose was letting people know that I cared about it. I think I’ve always done something – which is quite obviously stupid – that if I don’t show that I care too much then it doesn’t matter what the result is. But that’s silly. 

There’s a lesson for me here. I’m not totally sure I know exactly what the lesson is. But it’s something about having a purpose, a mission, a reason for doing something – and doing it because it matters to me. I know it doesn’t matter to anyone else. I know it doesn’t matter to the world or to sport and it will never be remembered in the history of things. I totally know that. But maybe, just maybe it will. Maybe someone years down the line will win the cup which I won and they’ll see my name on it and they’ll ask who the hell that person with the poncey surname was –  and maybe someone will remember me or have heard the story of the underdog versus the un-ruffle-able and it will mean something to them. Maybe it will inspire them. Not in a big way. But in some small, tiny way that gives them the focus that I had this week. And shows them that if they set their mind on something then maybe that’s all that they need to do. Maybe that’s all that matters. Choosing something you care about and focussing on it. No matter how small it is. Just having the focus means you can do the things you think you can’t.